Trudi Baldwin - Sammy Dick, PI 02 - Acid Test for Yellow Flower

by Trudi Baldwin

  She began to scan her arms and finally pointed to a tombstone on her left arm, the arm closest to me. Aha, I’d been right. Her index finger was delicate, without any paint on the nail, and she began to trace around a beautifully rendered tombstone with a date over twenty years ago carved across it. Under the date was written Tanya RIP.

  Tanya’s index finger tapped her own name on her arm, “Okay, Parker,” she said harshly, “let’s start with a simple backstory, as you call it.”

  I gulped. I knew we were about to descend, somehow, into her personal hell, a hell that she still hadn’t managed to extricate herself from entirely, but I also knew that her personal hell might be enough to have catapulted her into committing a crime. I was going to have to momentarily join her in her personal dive into hell to find out.

  Unobtrusively, I reached my hand into my little purse and felt around for the tiny listening devices. They were attached to a strip with four in a row. I began prying one loose, so I’d be ready to ease it onto her spaghetti strap if the opportunity presented itself.

  As I was working my own fingers around the listening device, her index finger began almost viciously tapping on the tombstone and her own name. “On this date, my mother, who shared my name, committed suicide through heroin overdose. I was seven years old at the time. I’m the one who found her. I opened the bathroom door and there she lay, huddled between the sink and the toilet, naked, the needle still jammed in her arm, spittle flowing from her mouth, shit and piss everywhere. She’d cracked her head open somehow on the way down, so blood flowed from her head. I didn’t care, I lifted her head onto my lap and cried, begging God to give her back to me, since she was all I had, and in a certain sense, she’d always loved me the best she could.”

  Tanya took a swig of beer, “In a way, she and I both died that day, because from that day forward I lived in a series of foster homes. These other tats illustrate those sordid backstories, but those are for telling on some other day.” She stopped and looked me in the eyes appraisingly, “that is if we ever have such a day.”

  I said, “I can only imagine what might befall a pretty, defenseless, seven-year-old girl in a series of foster homes. I’m sorry for your loss, Tanya, and all that followed. I had no idea, and my backstories, however sordid, can’t compare.”

  Tanya took another swallow of her beer, releasing my gaze and looking back to the wild video game where Lazy Larry was slowly but surely pulling ahead, “To this day, Parker, I can’t open a closed bathroom door without absolute fear coursing through my body; I tremble and sweat, afraid of what I’ll find on the other side. I know it’s a childish, unfounded fear, but I just can’t seem to shake it. Not even after all these years.”

  I saw my chance and decided to take it. I reached out my right hand to gently press her back in a gesture of camaraderie, meanwhile trying my best to hit my target with the sticky little listening device: her spaghetti strap.

  During my attempt I tried to distract her by saying, “Tanya, I don’t think it’s childish at all. If I’d had to endure what you’ve endured, I’d still have the fear too. I might never lose it.” There, I’d pressed the device into place.

  When Tanya sensed the pressure of my hand on her back, she whipped her back away from me and froze, her eyes like black bullets ready to shoot through my face. I was sure I’d been discovered and the shit was going to hit the fan—big time! Then she said in a rigid voice colder than a million-year-old ice floe, “Just one more thing, Parker, that you need to know about me. Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to touch me without my consent.”

  God only knows what unspeakable things have happened to this girl in her life I thought and prayed my tiny listening device deception would never be discovered. I stepped back gently, so as not to call attention to my act, and put my arms in the air in the classic pose of surrender.

  “I’m so sorry, Tanya. I didn’t know, and it’s a completely understandable request. I will absolutely honor it from here on out. My apologies.”

  Her eyes and stiff body stance relaxed some. She took in a breath. I let my arms down. So much for applying listening device number one. If the rest of them were going to be this emotionally taxing, I’d have to crawl out to my car at the end of the party.

  At that point, the air in the room changed once again and all eyes moved to the entry way. There stood Marissa Blout, the Schizoid Admin, dressed like a vampire.

  “Maybe she received the wrong invitation and thought this was a costume party?” I said to Tanya.

  “Nah, that’s just Marissa, She’s weirder than a tick guzzling blood off a crack whore. Watch, she’ll have some kind of off-the-wall explanation for the costume.”

  The tick and the crack whore reference was a new one, even for me. Must have been a metaphor gleaned from Tanya’s happy childhood.

  Tanya added, “The only good thing about Marissa is that she’s so weird, when I’m around her I seem normal.”

  I laughed out loud. I lifted my Cosmo to Tanya’s stein again, “Here, here. I’ll drink to that!”

  While we were clinking away, Marissa took hold of each side of her cape, and sort of flew around the landing making vampire-like sucking noises. She had the press-in teeth, blood drools drawn down the side of her mouth, artificially whitened skin and a teeny, tiny black mini-skirt on.

  On about the third zoom around the landing I began to suspect she was high, and so did everyone else at the party. Then she stopped as abruptly as she’d taken flight, framed herself on the landing with her cape spread wide on each side of her and trilled, “Sorry for the outfit, but I’m invited to a Ghoul’s Night Out Party right after this, and I didn’t want to have to go home and change.”

  “Told yah so,” said Tanya.

  “Wow, around her, you’re so normal, Tanya, I’m surprised you didn’t bring an apple pie for your BYOE contribution.”

  “Actually, I did, Parker. It’s right over there on the far side of the counter.”

  At this, Tanya and I both burst out laughing so loud that all eyes turned away from Marissa and toward the backside of the room, onto us. Not wanting to offend Marissa, who I was hoping to stick next, I said to the room, “Don’t mind us, we were just engaged in a joke about all-American apple pie.”

  At that, Tanya and I both broke into giggles again. I was really starting to like Tanya and began to hope she wasn’t the acid culprit, but time to move on.

  “Well, I missed dinner completely tonight, so I’m going to go have some of your apple pie.” With that I weaved my way through the crowd. Just as I reached Tanya’s apple pie a huge cheer erupted from everyone. Lazy Larry had officially trounced Hayden in the car race game and his winning numbers were pulsing off and on like a neon sign on the huge monitor.

  I guess the way it worked at the end was winner take all because Lazy Larry was wrapping his arms around both piles of betting cash and stuffing it into his wallet and pockets. Good-bye to my five-dollar bill. He had a big, goofy grin on his face. I doubted I’d place a listening device on Lazy Larry tonight, but maybe his goofiness was a put-on? He’d just trounced Hayden quite competently in a game, and he broke the rules at work by bringing in his cell phone almost every day.

  Geo and I decided that when I arrived at the party, I’d just use my intuition and/or any opportunities for access to place the four listening devices. Time to move on to placing device number two—and my intuition was blaring as brightly as Lazy Larry’s winning score pulsating on the screen, that Marissa Blout should be the winning recipient of my next listening device. I served myself a huge helping of Tanya’s apple pie, after searching out a fork and a small plate, then began edging my way toward Marissa, the Schizoid Admin, to play pin the tail on the donkey, or in this case, the vampire.

  Marissa was wending her way through the party holding her cape out and leaning into people’s necks as if she were about to bite. As she leaned in she’d make a growling, sucking noise. For the most part, the partygoers seemed to take it in stride and trea
ted her with a “you must be joshing” acceptance. I scanned the faces in the crowd to see who might find her offensive. Interestingly, the only person who seemed out of sorts was Handsome Hayden. Maybe he was a sore loser, though that felt out of character in my estimation. He was scanning the crowd in worried way, then his eyes alighted on me and he began heading like a beeline in my direction—hard to do since there were so many people who had somehow arrived at his party on a Wednesday evening on short announcement. A popular guy.

  I decided an opportunity for a device placement, in the form of Hayden, was now hurrying toward me, and I switched gears to focus on Hayden first. After that, I’d seek out Marissa.

  “Y’all throw a nice BYOE party, Hayden,” I said when he sidled in next to me. “Lots of people here mid-week and on very short notice. You must be a popular guy!”

  He smiled warmly at me. He hadn’t earned the nickname Handsome Hayden for nothin’. I stared up appreciatively into his long-lashed brown eyes. He wore tight, slim, very washed-out blue jeans fashionably torn in a number of intriguing places, topped off with a soft, gray t-shirt that said Touche’. Black cowboy boots finished the look. A simple, attractive outfit, and the best thing about it is that it offered many more opportunities to place a listening device than all-skin Tanya.

  “Would you like a tour of my house? Here, set your apple pie down just for a minute or two, and I’ll take you through my house,” he reached for my pie and set it down on the counter in an open space by the fridge while he thrust himself up close and personal into my space.

  Watch out, Hayden, you’re just about to become my next donkey. “Sure. I’d love a tour. How do you afford this house on your manufacturing wages? I’m curious. I’d like to know your secret, so I can do this too. Nice place, Hayden.” The house was located in a questionable part of town as far as crime and safety and, from what I could make out in the dark walking in, it was a little run down on the outside, but I was still impressed that Hayden appeared to own a home, or at least a mortgage, at such a young age.

  On the other hand, it also raised my suspicions. Maybe he was working for someone else? After all, his last name was Malouf and he had that darker skin and startling white teeth sometimes associated with terrorists, and then there was the stack of magazines featuring automatic weapons stashed in his truck, too. Maybe he was some kind of pawn in a larger terrorist plot? It would certainly strike terror into the hearts of most Americans to discover that the organic lotion they slathered all over their bodies might be laced with skin-eating acid. On the other hand, maybe I was over-generalizing and being a typical, ugly American and Hayden Malouf, who supposedly wanted to be a cop, was more American than any of us? Time would tell and that time just might be now as Hayden took me by the hand and led me back into the dark recesses of his home.

  He began turning on the lights as he showed off each room. It was an older house with a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway and small bedrooms. Everything was neat, orderly and sparse. Perfect for a terrorist, or, to be fair, an all-American cop. As he led me through the rooms, he explained, “My uncle, who had no offspring, willed this to me when he died last year. He’d already paid it off before he died. I was his favorite among all the nieces and nephews.”

  “I understand the favorite part, since you’re such a charmer,” I flirted with him. We were now entering the third and final bedroom, the Master, and he hadn’t turned on the lights. I could see his white teeth smiling even in the dim light. Time to get the listening device ready for placement. Also, time to figure out just how close I did or didn’t want to get to Hayden Malouf.

  This is the part that Mountain isn’t thrilled about in my character, or lack thereof. I kind of questioned it too, but the truth was I was quite interested in kissing Handsome Hayden, which was exactly what was just about to happen. I had a single device monitor clasped between my thumb and index finger ready to strike. He gently nuzzled me back against the wall and I let him. Then he leaned in and kissed me and I grabbed the sleeve of his t-shirt and pressed the sticky little thing into place on the back inner sleeve where I hoped it was close enough to his mouth to pick up what he was saying but not close enough to his skin to be detected.

  The kiss was gentle, which is what I like for starter kisses and no tongue. Just a good, sensitive kiss foretelling more to come. But here’s the turnoff for me—I’d forgotten that he practically chain smokes all day, and the taste of cigarettes overrode any pleasantry in the kiss. I felt like I was licking a very dirty ash tray clean.

  As I was deciding how to withdraw gracefully from his embrace and also from any future liaisons, the lights in the bedroom shot on catching us in full embrace. Framed in the doorway with her black-nailed index finger on the light switch stood Marissa Blout: angry, venomous and probably high on something or several somethings. She was also slurring her words up, as we soon discovered.

  “So here you two are, back in the furthest spreadroom, having sexth with each other like rabbits in the dark. I should have known all along, Hayden, that thith is where I’d find you with the new girl. You can never keep your sthnake in your pants, can you?” She drooled out the word “sthnake” for a very long time while her black-nailed finger pointed right at his sthnake.

  Hmmm … what to do? I decided to intercede and besides, I needed to get on Marissa’s good side pronto, and possibility of getting on her good side, that is if she even had a good side, had just sunk into deepest darkest doo-doo or with her, perhaps it was deepest darkest voodoo. Who knew with Marissa? But time to try.

  “Marissa, Hayden was just showing me his house, and we weren’t engaged in anything really. No snakes of any kind were out, I assure you. Besides, I already have a steady boyfriend, so no worries. I do have some questions, though, about your awesome outfit. Where do you buy something like that? I’m considering getting one for myself. It’s so sexy yet intriguing at the same time.”

  Hayden didn’t know whether to look affronted or grateful as I tentatively walked toward Marissa and tried to coax her back down the hall. Now that the light had been switched on, I watched his handsome face register multiple expressions in quick order and then settle into a look of frustration and confusion. Apparently, I have a knack for leaving men standing there in frustration and confusion.

  So be it. Right now I had a job to do. Marissa was so high that her attention span flitted dangerously from one subject to the next and in and out of reality. Luckily, I was able to use this to my advantage and shift her thinking off of Hayden and onto herself and her outfit. I coaxed her out of the bedroom and back down the hall.

  “Men are thuch ash holes, aren’t they Parker?” Marissa whined.

  Actually my experience was quite the opposite, but I wanted to get on her good side. “Upon occasion, yes, men seem to be assholes. You are so right, Marissa. By the way, where did you find your outfit? My girlfriend and I collect awesome outfits, so I’m very interested.”

  As we dived into more extended conversation, Marissa began slurring her speech even more. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was high or that it was hard to talk with the fake vampire incisors inserted in her mouth. “Yeth, I like to collect ouchfits too, but thith ith one of my all-thime favorites.”

  “I can see why. It’s very intriguing, yet sexy at the same time, Marissa.”

  “Do you like sexth, Parker, espethially sexth with vampireths?”

  “I might, Marissa. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had the occasion to have sexth with a vampireth.”

  “Are you making fun of my thspeech, Parker?”

  “No, Marissa, the truth is I’ve had one too many Cosmos, but I brought three bottles. Do you want to try some?”

  “Thure, Parker, I’d like that, but let’s talk more about having sexth with vampireths firsth.” Marissa began backing me into bedroom number two or spreadroom as Melissa called it. Might be time to attach listening device number three I thought as she shoved me into the bedroom. Out of the corner of my eye I watched her lon
g black nail click off the light that Hayden had left on when he’d shown me the room. Uh oh, I was now officially in deep dark doo-doo or was it voodoo? I fingered around in my purse for the tiny device. Oh hell, where was it? Marissa was opening up my legs with one of hers and leaning in toward my neck making a syrupy sucking noise as she backed me closer and closer to the bed. Her breath smelled of cigarettes, lipstick, old makeup, and some other unidentifiable smell, like a week old corpse. With her, who knew? The possibilities were endless.

  At last, my fingers found the elusive listening device, ripped it from its perch, which was quite tricky with only one hand, while the other hand tried to hold Marissa at bay without pissing her off, which was decidedly hard to do since Marissa was almost always pissed off. She was backing me closer and closer to the bed until I finally felt the bed on the back of my knees. Now what?

  “Sexth with a vampireth, espethially a female vampireth, is an unforguessthable exthperienth, Parker.”

  I’ll bet it’s unforguessable, I thought as I groped around on the raised collar of her cape trying to find a likely spot for the listening device. Finally, I found a place right under the raised tip of her collar that arched over near her mouth and I thankfully pressed the device in place. The collar must have been constructed with heavy-duty stays to make it sit up around her neck like it did, but it offered the best location yet for voice monitoring. I certainly hoped Geo was able to record from the listening devices, since I was going through hell to place them. Just then Marissa crashed right on top of me in the dark and rolled us both to the middle of the bed.

  Something unforguessable is about to happen! was all I could think of, and I was right: Marissa rolled right over me and fell sound asleep beside me on the bed. Holy crap, was I ever relieved!